Answering God’s Call
Nehemiah 2:1-9 14 October 2007

Andrew Lim

People often ask “How do I find my calling in life”
It does no matter whether you are 17 yrs or 47 yrs
Young and old alike / people want to know their vocation in life

Perhaps you are at the cross-roads of your life
or you’re setting out in life / you’ve not chosen your path
and you’re asking “How will I know what God is calling me to do?”

About 50 years ago / a 19 year old young man asked same question
He was a rather awkward introverted young man
He was trying to be faithful to God / trying to deal with sin in his life
in order to try to live a holy life before God
He had more questions than answers as to where his place in life is to be
And he tells us that he turned to the bible
and found answers in the most unusual place

This is what he says in his own words / “During the half century
that I have been a Christian / one person in the Bible
has helped me enormously / more than any other bible character
apart form the Lord Jesus Himself / When I get to heaven
I hope I shall be able to meet him and tell him so”

Now perhaps you are curious as to who this young man was
who 50 years ago / at age 19 found his purpose from a Bible character
Well / this young is today one of the most accomplished
and distinguished theologian in our time
– He’s none other than Dr J.I.Packer
Now perhaps you are equally curious / as to which Bible character it was
who gave such a clear vocational guidance to a confused teenager
the answer – Nehemiah

J.I. Packer found help in the character of Nehemiah
and specifically in the passage we’re going to look at this morning
Nehemiah 2

So if you are in a season of your life
where you’re looking for vocational guidance
God may have a word for you this morning

I our study of Nehemiah / we see him in Susa / the palatial winter residence
of the King of Persia one by the name of Artaxerxes

Last week we discovered that Nehemiah comes to hear the bad news
that the walls of Jerusalem were still in a state of disrepair
and that the very first thing he does / when he hears the news
he drops down to his knees / and he prays

And the crucial point I made last week is this:
Nehemiah’s prayer is deeply infused and saturated
with an understanding of the character of God

v 4 “When I heard these things / I sat down and wept / for some days
I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven
Then I said: / “O LORD / God of heaven
the great and awesome God / who keeps his covenant of love
with those who love him and obey his commands
let your ear be attentive and your eyes open
to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you
day and night for your servants / the people of Israel”

He sees God / as the One Who alone / is truly “great and awesome”
- not the way we use the word “awesome”
To him / God is Yahweh Elohim
the God Who is sovereign over all things
over all peoples / all kingdoms / all rulers / all powers

And because he has such a high and lofty view of God
he is also acutely conscious of his own failings
and he begins to ask for forgiveness
verse 6b and 7 “I confess the sins we Israelites / including myself
and my father's house / have committed against you
v.7 / We have acted very wickedly toward you
We have not obeyed the commands / decrees and laws
You gave your servant Moses”

But that’s what a high vision of God always does
It makes us grievous about our own shameful shortcomings and failures

Isaiah when he sees the Lord high and lifted up
His train filling the temple / what did he say”
“Woe to me! / I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips
and I live among a people of unclean lips
and my eyes have seen the King / the LORD Almighty” / Is 6:5

When Peter for the first time recognizes that this man Jesus
standing before him was indeed the Messiah / what did he say:
“Depart from me Lord / For I am a sinful man”

When John on the island of Patmos / saw a vision of the Lord Jesus
what did he say? / “When I saw Him
I fell at His feet / like a dead man”

And here in our text / Nehemiah
when he sees God as the great and awesome God
remembers his people’s sin
how they have violated God’s commands / and dishonored God
through their unfaithfulness and idolatry

And instead of sweeping it under the rug
he chooses to openly confess them / he cries to God for forgiveness

We live in a time when sin is no longer taken seriously
we’ve come to accept idolatry as no big deal
we confuse lust with love / we’re no longer cry over injustice
we offend God and not bat an eyelid over it

But / until we grieve over our sins / and confess and repent of them
until we don’t put ourselves right with God
we can’t even begin to get anywhere with God

In 1996 / a minister by the name of Joe Wright
was asked to pray before the House of the Kansas Legislature.
Everyone was expecting the usual kind of a soft-peddled prayer
one that neither inspires nor rattles anyone
But what they heard shocked them / and the reaction was swift
- one legislator walked out during the prayer in protest
- in the weeks that followed thousands
responded favorably to the prayer

This is the prayer of Joe Wright
“Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask Your forgiveness
and to seek Your direction and guidance.
We know Your Word says ’Woe to those who call evil good,’
but that is exactly what we have done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We confess that.
We have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it pluralism.
We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism.
We have endorsed perversion and called it alternative lifestyle.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children & called it building self-esteem.
We have abused power and called it politics.
We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography
and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers
and called it enlightenment.
Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today
cleanse us from every sin and set us free.
Guide and bless these men and women
who have been sent to direct us to the center of Your will.
I ask it in the name of Your Son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen"

Now that / is what God sees / as a humble confession
and with that / we can begin to get somewhere with God

And that / is exactly how Nehemiah prays
Notice how he makes his confessions of sins / very specific
Listen to Nehemiah / verse 6b and 7
“I confess the sins we Israelites / including myself
and my father's house / have committed against you
v.7 / We have acted very wickedly toward you
We have not obeyed the commands / decrees and laws
You gave your servant Moses”

When was it last that you grieve and sorrow over your sins
and confess and repent of them
Sins that remain unconfessed and unrepented
disrupt your relationship with God

Nehemiah confesses his sins and the sins of his people
But he doesn't wallow in his sinful state
He moves on from there

Nehemiah says / “Lord / You promised us that if we rebelled
we would be punished / and we did / and we are
But you also promised that if we turned back
however far we had been scattered / you would bring us home”

And he calls on God to act as he promised he would
This is a prayer that banks on God’s Word / as He has spoken

And taking God on his word
Nehemiah confidently looks to God for deliverance

Sin doesn't have the final authority
The reason we pray / is so we could be delivered from sin

Now / back to our story
Does it not sound rather strange to you
that this is how Nehemiah responds / to the news of the broken walls
I mean / here is a visionary / a man with deep passion and action
He hears about the broken walls
He can’t wait to make a trip home to Jerusalem to get the job done

But he does not rush out to do that
Instead he begins by praying
He worships God / he exalts the greatness and awe of God
And his praise / provokes him into confession
and he confesses his sins and the sins of the nation Israel

Why does he do that?
Because Nehemiah sees himself / as a man who needs God
Perhaps he would have said to himself: “I’m just a poison-taster
I just drink this stuff before I give it to the king
and if I live another day / then the king’s going to live another day
that’s just what I do
Who am I have any influence on this great King of Persia”

This is the reason why he prays
He sees so clearly / without God on his side / he has no influence at all
And could it be that the reason we don’t pray as much as we ought to
is because we have become so cocksure of ourselves
so self-assured / and self-sufficient

But Nehemiah understands his own limitations / and he prays
And as he prays
God instructs his mind and fires his passion / gives him a calling

Now / on this particular day / he is serving the king his wine / at table
and the king notices his sad face and asks him for the reason

Notice his answer / “Why shall I not be sad when the place
of my father’s burial lies in ruins and its gates destroyed”

Notice he answers in the form of a question
He gives the king an opportunity to pursue the matter further
Notice too how very careful Nehemiah is
not to mention the word Jerusalem / v3 he just says “the city”
He knows that to the king / Jerusalem is a dirty word
His advisers have tarnished his view by calling it
a rebellious and wicked city / city of sedition
His advisers have told him before “Don’t let the Jews
build the city up again / Ezra 4 “the city is not to be rebuilt”

So Nehemiah is careful not to mention the name of the city
Instead he calls it “the city of my father’s grave”
And the king says to him:
“Just what are you requesting?” “What is it that you want?”

The king is showing favor toward Nehemiah

Now does Nehemiah take the chance and rattle off a list of all the things he wants
No! He does not do that
What does he do?
v. 4b “Then I prayed to the God of heaven”
He is probably praying a silent prayer in his heart
he shoots an arrow prayer to God for wisdom / for the right words

In such a short time into the book
already this is the second time we find Nehemiah praying

He knows that his future / his life / his success / welfare / calling
does not lie on the whims and fancies of King Artaxerxes

Artaxerxes may be an important person in the eyes of the world
a man who could decide on the spot / whether you life or die
but in the eyes of Nehemiah
Artaxerxes is just a man like any other man

To him / it is God / who moves human history / not Artaxerxes
This is why when he prays to God
he refers to the king as “this man”
“Give your servant success today
by granting him favor in the presence of / this man”

So he prays to God in this crucial hour / and it is such a crucial hour
Even though he is a slave here today and gone tomorrow
he’s thinking to himself / “After 141 years
could this be the moment that we’ve been waiting for?”
So with all boldness and courage he makes his request

He says v.5 “If it pleases the king and if your servant
has found favor in his sight / let him send me to the city in Judah
where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it”

He isn’t aware that the king might react in anger / and say
“What is this you are asking / what audacity to ask for something like this”
Haven’t you read my decree in Ezra 4:21
“We’re not ever going to rebuild the city of Jerusalem
It’s the law of the Medes and Persians how dare you ask me to do that!”

So Nehemiah isn’t unaware that the king might be offended by the request
But he says what he has to say
And there comes a time in your life and my life
when there are things we must say / and not left unsaid
and everything will hang on whether you will be prepared for that
In that moment / you will know what you will have to say
The question is “Will you say it?”
“Will you throw all caution to the winds
and do the right thing you know the Spirit of God tells you to do?

And Nehemiah sees / from where he stands
that the king’s heart is favorably predisposed / to his requests

And he says to the king / “If it pleases the king / may I have letters
to the governors of Trans-Euphrates / so that they will provide me
safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah?”

He knows that the rulers beyond the region are fussy about bureaucratic details
that they would demand the proper travel documents / the proper visa
those letters are the imperial passports of the day
and he asks the king for them
He also asks for a letter for Asaph / the keeper of the king’s forest
so he will be given timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel
by the temple / and for the city wall / and for his residence

And the king grants Nehemiah / all that he asks for
v.8 / “The king granted my requests” / v.9 “So I went to the governors
of Trans-Euphrates and gave them the king's letters
The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me”

Now why? Why should the king grant Nehemiah everything he wanted?
Because Nehemiah was clever / because he was schemer / a manipulator

No ! / Verse 8 says / “for the gracious hand of the Lord was upon me”
If you have food on the table
the gracious hand of the Lord is upon you
If you have money in the bank
the gracious hand of the Lord is upon you
If you have health
the gracious hand of the Lord is upon you

Part of Nehemiah’s greatness lies in his ability to see God
in all the affairs of his life

What a story! / And this is the very story / Packer tells us
so impacted his own life / it changed the course of his life / at 19 yrs of age

And this story will speak to us
about finding our calling and vocation in life

We need to remember that Nehemiah is living a comfortable life
he lives in a palatial winter residence
he has a top-notch job / he has the kings favor on his side
he is a man of influence
it is he who decides who could see the king who couldn’t
he drinks the finest wine / eats the choicest meat

He could have told himself
that he will not let anything rock his comfort and security
He could have decided not to take any notice of the plight of God’s city
He has could have turned a deaf ear to what he is hearing about it
He has status and wealth that went with such a position

Nehemiah has a huge decision to make / there are two voices calling out to him
he hears the voice of his people back in Jerusalem who needed help
he also hears the voice / tempting him
not to give up the comfortable life that he lives

Many of us understand this tension / we live with it
- in some sense the world has given us a good living

- we do have a measure of comfort and security / if not status
And we hear the call of God in our hearts as well

One of my favourite prayers / reflects the inner tension
it comes from St Martin-in-the-Fields / in London

I am two people / and one is filled with longing to serve thee utterly
and one is afraid / O lord / have compassion upon me
I am two people / and one will labor to the end
And one is weary already / O Lord / have compassion upon me
I am two people / and one knows the suffering of the world
And one knows only my own /O Lord have compassion upon me
And may the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ
Fill my heart and the hearts of all people everywhere / Amen

Nehemiah must have had this tension in his heart
He is probably a third or fourth generation Jewish exile in a foreign land
He remembers the stories told to him by those who lived before him
how that one day the Babylonian bulldozer came in
- devastated the land/ reduced the temple and the city walls to rubbles
- and the people taken away to serve as slaves in Babylon

But what is he to do / he is having a comfortable life
- living where he now lives / in the palace of the greatest king of his time

What is he to do?

Remember / this man has just spent four long cold winter months praying
- he has been trying to come to terms / with his own life and death
- he has preparing himself to die to himself / that he may live for God
- he has been growing in his heart / a total final consecration to God

That’s what / he has been doing during those four long winter months
And that / is the reason why God sent Paul into the arid places of Arabia
why He sent Moses / into the Median desert
why He sent Amos / into the sycamore orchard
why He put Joseph / into a pit

And why? / So each one of them / may come
to a point where they could see that their lives were not theirs to own
- so they may come to a point of full and total consecration to God

Nehemiah heart is fired with a passion for the glory of God
he is grieved when they called Jerusalem / the wicked city
the rebellious city / the seditious city
when God has said / “This is my holy city
and here my name will be glorified”

And Nehemiah comes to see that he can no longer live to his own comfort
He comes to have this passion for the house of God
“Better is a day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere
Better for me to be in your holy city even though it lies in a rubble
than for me to be here in this palatial place
where your glory is not

Ps 84:2 / My soul yearns / even faints for the courts of the LORD
My heart and my flesh cry out / for the living God”

Is there a holy dissatisfaction in your heart / a holy restlessness
agitating from deep in your heart / and you’re saying to yourself
“What am I living for? / Whom am I serving? / Why am I in this world?
What am I really to do with this short life I’ve got

One very successful man wrote these words:
“As you know / I have been very fortunate in my career
and I’ve made a lot of money / far more than I ever dreamed of
far more than I could ever spend / far more than my family needs
To be honest / one of my motives for making so much money was simple
- to have the money to hire people to do what I don’t like doing
But there’s one thing I’ve never been able hire any anyone to do for me
- find my own sense of purpose and fulfillment”

Then he added these words: “I’d give anything / to discover that”

Why? / Because until you discover your life’s meaning and purpose
your life will remain a mere existence

Rich and powerful people can be living very empty lives
because they have not discovered the purpose for their existence

It was Walker Percy who says:
“You can get all A’s / and still flunk life”
Os Guinness says:
“We have too much to live with / and too little to live for”

Finally when all is said and done
it is only when I answer the call of God / to live my life for him
will I finally discover the true meaning and purpose for my existence

Your sole purpose in life / is to answer God’s call to follow Him
and unless and until you surrender to this call
you will remain aimless and unfulfilled
no matter how successful you are in the world’s sense of success

Jesus says “Love not the world / nor the things of the world”
Increasingly / I have come to see
that these words are spoken well before their time

Increasingly / we are seeing the wisdom of these words

What do I mean?
Well / isn’t it the case that the world
is fast being undone / its now a dizzy dizzy world
Maybe in past centuries there have been things in the world
that people have cherished and treasured
But we live in a time when everything have been dumb down to a point
that this has now become a mushy and drearisome place

Look a round you / it does not take the sensitivity of an artist or a poet
to see that everywhere you look / things have now
become dull / insipid / and flavourless

the values it pretends to have are wishy-washy / hollow / without soul
the stars and celebrities are shallow / frivolous and frothy
the media / on a daily basis / glorifies all that is bland and boring
the TV programs they produce are / flighty / frivolous / silly and spiritless
the arts they produce are unpalatable / tasteless and pulpy

In short / on the surface the world may appear glossy and exciting
but deep in its heart / it is colourless / shallow / dismal and diluted

Deep in the heart / this world is knocked silly
and fast becoming laughable / shallow / and wacky

In view of all this / it is so utterly irrational and silly
to spend forty to sixty years of our lives / living for the world
- coddling ourselves / gratifying ourselves
- nourishing ourselves with pleasures that never lasts
at the expense of investing in the kingdom of God

As God’s children / we need to have our minds clear
And if our minds are clear / we will do / what Nehemiah did

And that is / make a choice to walk away from it all
and to choose instead to invest our lives for the kingdom of God

I pray that no matter what age you’re at now
you will ask God for strength
to answer His call to pour out your life for Him

How may I pour out my life for Jesus? / you ask
How may I live / so that I am not living a wasted life? / you ask
I will say this:

In your work in your neighborhood / in your community
both by the way you live / and by the words you speak
make a deliberate choice to lift Jesus up for the world to see

Use all the possessions / God has blessed you with
for the sake of the kingdom of God
you have a home / invite the less fortunate to come in
you have food / share with others who have none
you have a car / how can be used for the kingdom of God
you’ve been blessed with surplus / excess money
look for ways to honor Jesus / by the way you use it
use it to magnify His name / use it to build His kingdom

You have one life to live for something / someone / some ideal
live it totally for Christ ad the cause of the gospel

Paul says it so clearly / “It is my eager expectation and hope
that I will not be at all ashamed / but that with full courage
now as always / Christ will be honored in my body
whether by life or by death” / Philippians 1:20-21

It didn’t matter to Paul if he lived or die
as long as through his little life / Jesus Christ is honored

The Word of God is calling us all
to treasure Jesus Christ and His cause above all things
And whether we really treasure Jesus
can be seen / in what we are willing to give up for Him

Scripture is realistic about the battles of life
Scripture warns us that there are internal battles to be fought
1 Peter 2:11 “Dear friends / I urge you / as aliens and strangers
in the world / to abstain from sinful desires
which war against your soul”

Nehemiah may be living a comfortable life
but he does not see his life / as his own to live as he pleases

The Word of God in Rom 12 says / “I urge you to offer your bodies
as living sacrifices / holy and pleasing to God
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind
Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is
- his good / pleasing and perfect will”

God will make his will for you / known to you
in as much as the measure of your desire for him is

You relinquish your life over to God He will show you what you are to do

I challenge us all here
but I am especially challenging those who are young

Don’t waste these short precious years that you’ve been given
and waste them / and squander them in little cocktail chatter
- to talking little talks / throw little happy parties

Don’t throw away your life on trivia
Live your life for the only purpose that lasts
and that is to see the nations of the world glorify God

Ask God to give you a vision for His purpose
and a commitment to His purpose
then ask him for the passion to follow that through